


Home Again From Far-Off Places

by inexplicifics



Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [13]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Daggers, F/M, Families of Choice, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Kaer Morhen's Fanon Hot Springs (The Witcher), Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24976264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: Aiden comes home to Kaer Morhen after two years wandering around Skellige, and discovers to his surprise that an awful lot has changed.
Relationships: Aiden & Lambert (The Witcher), Aiden (The Witcher) & Original Female Character, Lambert (The Witcher)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683661
Comments: 324
Kudos: 3225





	1. Chapter 1

When Aiden finally makes it back to Kaer Morhen, late in the autumn two fucking _years_ after he set out, he wants three things, in no particular order:

A fucking _drink_ , because apparently no one in Skellige knows how to make liquor that isn’t fucking _terrible_ ;

A nice long soak in the fucking _decadent_ hot springs, which are frankly the best part of having joined up with the White Wolf in his insane quest to make the North less horrible;

And an evening of shooting the shit with Lambert, because for some incomprehensible reason he’s actually _missed_ that foul-mouthed asshole. Baffling, but there it is.

He drags himself through the gates around midafternoon, cursing the Wolves and their godsawful excuse for a trail - admittedly it’s better than it was when he _first_ encountered it, back when it had really done its best to _earn_ the nickname ‘the Killer,’ but it’s still long and winding and steep and generally unpleasant to climb when you’re already tired from two fucking years of travel. The first person he spots is Cedric, with Axel as always right behind him, and the other two Cats light up and pounce on him with glee. Aiden ends up on his back on the cold stone of the courtyard, swearing in Skelliger - it’s a horrid dialect but it _does_ have good curse words - but then they _do_ help him up and Cedric offers him a shoulder as they head into the keep, so he supposes he’ll forgive them.

“What’s new in this old stone pile?” he asks as they tromp in through the main doors, Axel considerately taking his pack and then wrinkling his nose at the smell of unwashed clothing that rises out of it.

“Well,” Cedric says, frowning a little, “actually you’ve missed...kind of a lot, brother. You left about six months after the songbird showed up, yeah?”

“Songbird?” Aiden says, wrinkling his nose. “Oh, the little bard? Yeah, I heard all _sorts_ of fucking batshit rumors about him. Which ones’re true?”

“You missed him and the Wolf pining at each other like a godsdamned forest,” Axel chuckles. “And you’ll smell him before you see him, these days.”

“...Oh?” Aiden asks. The bard had mostly stopped smelling like fear by the time Aiden left; he can’t imagine what scent might have replaced that.

“Oh yeah,” Axel says, and grins without explaining himself further. _Brothers_ , seriously.

“He’s the Consort now, that rumor’s true enough,” Cedric says, steering Aiden towards the stairs down to the hot springs. “Also he and the Wolf and Eskel are…” he trails off and waves a hand like he can’t find the words.

“Fucking adorable,” Axel opines. “Also, fucking.”

Aiden blinks at both of them. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says at last. “Who won the pool?”

“Fucking Merigold,” Cedric sighs. “I lost fifty orens on that one.”

Axel grins. “I keep telling you not to bet against her. Anyhow. Songbird ended up Consort, got stabbed, got better, we almost went to war with Temeria, songbird got kidnapped in Oxenfurt and we almost went to war with _Redania_...what am I missing?”

“Lambert and his pretty swan,” Cedric supplies.

“...Lambert got a pet?” Aiden ventures. He can’t imagine Lambert keeping any sort of pet, much less a _swan_. Bad-tempered things, in his experience. Which...actually might make them _more_ appealing to the prickly asshole, come to think of it. Still, the last thing this keep needs is _more_ bad-tempered waterfowl.

“Nah, if you call her that he’ll probably try and gut you,” Axel advises him. “Got a _lover_.”

Aiden considers that carefully as they reach the entrance to the hot springs, turning the thought over a couple of times and looking at it from different angles. “Lambert,” he says at last. “Prickliest asshole this side of a hedgehog. Swears like a sailor. That Lambert. Has a lover.” The man might be his best friend, but Aiden has no illusions about how much of an ass he is.

“Yep,” Cedric says. “Sweet little thing, too. Noblewoman out of Redania. Milena, her name is.”

“Sweet little thing,” Aiden says, wondering if he keeled over on his way up the Trail and bashed his head in and is now hallucinating. Or - oh, no, there’s an even more obvious conclusion. “You’re having me on.” It’s not nice to play pranks like that on a man who’s just gotten back to the keep.

“Keep thinking that,” Axel says, shrugging. “You’ll see.”

Aiden makes a rude gesture at them both, strips off his travel-stained clothing, and slides into the hottest spring available with a sigh of utter relief, sagging back against the side and closing his eyes in bliss. Oh _fuck_ yes, he’s not going to move until _supper_.

“I’ll tell the Wolf you’ll report tomorrow, hey?” Cedric says, chuckling, and Aiden nods without opening his eyes. Nothing he’s learned is so urgent he needs to report immediately.

Cedric tosses a bar of soap down next to him, and he and Axel leave again, taking Aiden’s bag with them. Aiden closes his eyes and _basks_. There’s hardly anyone here right now; it’s quiet, the water is hot enough to scald a normal human and therefore just about perfect; and he’s _home_.

He’s pretty sure he dozes off for a while, because the next thing he knows, there’s a sudden uptick in the level of sound in the room, and he sits up a little further to see the Witchers of Kaer Morhen pouring in through the doors, shoving and laughing and jesting. Ah, afternoon practice must be over. He waves a lazy hand as half a dozen Cats come piling into his pool, all of them grinning wildly, and puts up with being thumped on the shoulder and having his hair vigorously ruffled, returning the gestures of affection easily. _Cats_ can actually express their feelings in something like a healthy manner, unlike some Wolves he knows. Or Bears. Bears are all deeply repressed assholes.

“Cedric said you looked like something the cat dragged in,” Kiyan grins. Everyone else groans.

“That joke wasn’t funny the first time you told it, either,” Aiden informs him.

“Nah, it’s funnier every time,” Kiyan says, and Treyse thoughtfully pushes him under water and holds him there for a minute or so. Kiyan surfaces with a snort and a splash, and Aiden sighs as his peaceful soaking pool turns into a very small brawl.

He hauls himself out after a moment - brawls are fun and all, but he’s fucking _tired_ \- and drags himself off upstairs to find that his rooms are just the way he left them, apart from being _clean_ , blessings on Jan and the chambermaids, and his spare clothes still pretty much fit and don’t smell like they’ve been dragged across the ass end of Skellige for two years, unlike everything he brought back with him.

The great dining hall is pretty much the way he remembers it, apart from the double-wide chair up at the head table - Aiden’s not entirely sure what that’s about until the bard comes in between the White Wolf and Eskel, and settles into the big chair pretty much on the Wolf’s lap. The Wolf wraps an arm around his waist and looks smug, insofar as he ever looks anything but grumpy. Huh. That _is_ new. And, as Axel said, fucking adorable. Aiden slumps down in his usual seat and pillows his head on his arms and dozes as the hall fills around him, the noise of happy Witchers a dull rumble quite unlike the constant roar of the ocean on Skellige’s rocky shores.

“Hey,” Axel says, sitting down beside him and nudging him with an elbow. “Wake up, sleepyhead, before Kiyan decides to put gravy in your hair.”

“He can try, if he wants to die in his sleep tonight,” Aiden grumbles, and sits up. The tables are full, and the servers are coming out of the kitchen, and he’s abruptly _starving_. The food in Kaer Morhen got a fucking hell of a lot better after Marlene took over the kitchens, and Aiden has spent much of the last two years eyeing traditional Skelliger dishes dubiously and dreaming of Marlene’s skill with a roast or a soup, or the egg pies she sometimes makes for dinner.

He eats himself full almost to bursting, and only then looks up at the Wolf table again to see if he can spot Lambert. He’s right where he ought to be: two chairs down from the Wolf and the songbird, right next to Eskel. Or at least, he’s right where he ought to be for a scant moment, before he drains his mug and gets up and goes wandering down the table to the chair next to Merigold, where a dainty little noblewoman in green silk, dark-haired and dark-eyed and pretty in a way Aiden would have expected to be ruined within hours in Kaer Morhen, looks up at him and smiles so sweet it’s genuinely startling.

Lambert kisses her, and then picks her up and sits down in her chair and puts her on his lap, and she _laughs_ , like this is completely normal, and Merigold rolls her eyes and chuckles, and Lambert nuzzles at the girl’s throat and looks so contented and calm that Aiden has to rub his eyes and look again to make sure it _is_ Lambert, and not some other Wolf Witcher who just happens to look exactly like Aiden’s best friend.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Aiden says.

Axel snorts. “Lambert and his pretty swan-maid. We told you.”

 _Pretty swan-maid_ , huh? “Are we sure she’s not a sorceress?” Aiden asks, watching in frank disbelief as Lambert starts _playing with the girl’s hair_ , twirling a lock of it around one finger idly as he talks. “Part-succubus? Something else with _compulsion powers_?”

“Nah, she’s a nice little thing,” Cedric says. “Smart, honest, friendly. Little stabby if you kidnap her.”

“Well, that’s fair,” Aiden says, because he’d be a little stabby if kidnapped, too, and agreeing with logical statements seems like a rational thing to do in the middle of this moment of _complete insanity_.

“Completely human as far as anyone can tell,” Axel says. “And mostly sane, apart from being utterly besotted with Lambert. Nobody’s come up with a decent explanation for that.”

“Lambert’s a good man,” Aiden objects, because Lambert _is_ his best friend, dearer to him even than most of his brothers.

“Yeah, under all the asshole,” Cedric agrees. Up at the Wolf table, the girl laughs - apparently at something Lambert said - and twists around in his lap to kiss him. Lambert leans into the kiss, closing his eyes and looking like he wants to fucking _purr_.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Aiden whispers.

Axel pats his shoulder. Cedric shrugs and offers him a honeycake. Aiden nibbles at it, staring up at the Wolf table, watching Lambert smile and cuddle his pretty swan-maid and look - _happy_. Happy like he looks, sometimes, _rarely_ , when it’s just him and Aiden out on a hunt together and Aiden manages to get past all the asshole to make him laugh.

Maybe it’s the staring, but as Aiden finishes the honeycake, Lambert looks up and meets his eyes. And Aiden - well, to be perfectly honest, he was starting to worry that now that Lambert has his pretty swan-maid, he won’t need a beat-up Cat anymore - but Lambert _grins_ , all teeth and glee, and stands up, putting his pretty swan-maid back in her chair with another kiss, and vaults the Wolf table to come trotting over towards Aiden. Aiden stands, and Lambert slams into him, an embrace that’s half a tackle. Aiden staggers a little, but doesn’t fall over, mostly because of Lambert’s arms around him.

“You fucker, when’d you get back?” Lambert demands.

“This afternoon,” Aiden replies, thumping Lambert’s back enthusiastically. “What, gossip chain breaking down already?”

“Fuckers probably thought it’d be funny to surprise me,” Lambert says. “You look like _shit_ , Aiden.”

“Yeah, well, food in Skellige is godsawful,” Aiden says. “You look...good.” He _does_ , is the thing. He’s as brawny and healthy as a Witcher should be, and his tunic has _embroidery_ along the hems, and he smells like - like contentment and roses. Which is very different from his _usual_ scent, before Aiden left, of constant mild anger, a sort of aura of prickiness like the spines of a hedgehog, a warning and a threat.

Roses have thorns, too, but they’re a lot less obvious about it than hedgehogs are.

“Fuckin’ Skellige,” Lambert agrees, and plops down on the bench next to Aiden, hauling him down to sit again. “Any good hunts?”

“Ice troll,” Aiden says, and half the Cats break off their conversations to pay attention. Ice trolls are rare, and unpleasant to fight. “For some fucking reason it decided people tasted better than sheep. Big fucker, too.” He shrugs. “Not really much finesse to it, though. Just a bunch of Quen and Yrden and hacking at it until it fell over. Next time I have to fight one of them, I want a couple of Bears with me. More their speed.”

“Ick,” Cedric says, wrinkling his nose. “Remind me not to go to Skellige anytime soon.”

“Remember that time a troll thought you’d make a lovely cave decoration?” Kiyan asks Treyse, and the conversation goes off into trolls-I-have-known. Lambert shakes his head and nudges a shoulder against Aiden’s.

“Come meet Milena,” he says quietly, under the rumble of conversation.

“Sure,” Aiden says, wondering how terrible an idea this is, and follows Lambert up to the Wolf table, as wary as he always is before a battle.

What if she doesn’t like him? What if she convinces _Lambert_ not to like him anymore? Aiden’s seen enough of that sort of thing - always from a distance, eavesdropping on normal humans and laughing at their antics, but still, he knows it’s a thing that happens, a new beloved distracting their lover from all their former friends. And what’s Aiden got to offer, compared to a dark-eyed, dainty little swan-maid who smells like roses and looks at Lambert like he hung the moon?

She rises when she sees Lambert approaching, steps back from the table a little, away from the commotion that is Witchers at their leisure. Aiden stops a little ways away from her, far enough that he won’t loom, won’t scare her. Lambert doesn’t bother; he goes right to her, looping an arm around her waist. She settles against his side like a missing piece, like she’s meant to fit there, tucked safely under his arm.

“This’s Aiden,” Lambert says. The pretty swan-maid _smiles_ , broad and bright, and holds out a hand without hesitation. “Aiden, this’s Milena.”

“Lambert’s told me so much about you,” Milena says. Her voice is just as pretty as her face, sweet and pleasant to listen to. Aiden takes her hand very carefully, and is promptly surprised: there are knife-calluses on her soft fingers, and an astonishing amount of strength in her grip. Not _Witcher_ strength, of course not, but a lot more than he expected from a dainty little noblewoman. “It’s very good to meet you at last. Welcome home!”

“Thanks,” Aiden says, baffled. She doesn’t smell scared at _all_. She smells happy - contented, just like Lambert does - and very much in love, all sweet honey and roses. And she smells like Lambert, of course; lovers always smell like each other, at least a little, and she and Lambert both smell like they spend hours every day in each other’s company. Aiden expected _that_. But the lack of fear - that’s extremely odd. Sure, the humans who stick around, servants and lovers alike, lose the fear-scent after a few months, but Milena _looks_ like she should be afraid, pretty little noblewoman in a keep full of Witchers. And she isn’t.

“I am sure you and Lambert have a great deal of catching-up to do,” she says, smiling up at him. “Would you prefer I went and bothered Jaskier for a while, and let you talk?”

That’s...a lot more generous than Aiden really expected. “If you don’t mind,” he says, listening hard for a lie, and Milena chuckles.

“Not in the slightest,” she says, apparently honestly, and goes up on her toes to kiss Lambert’s cheek. “Go and catch up with your friend, my love; I’m going to go tease Jaskier about the last book he loaned me.”

Lambert turns his head and kisses her, soft and sweet, and nods. “Don’t wait up,” he says, and she nods and goes wandering on up the table towards the songbird. Lambert snags a flagon of mead off the table and gestures for Aiden to lead the way.

They’ve had a spot, him and Lambert, since the Cats came to Kaer Morhen to join the White Wolf’s army: an old blocked-up window or something, high up on the battlements, tucked into a little corner out of the wind, where they can see and hear anything approaching, and where they can talk in actual _privacy_ , which is rare in a keep full of Witchers. No mere human could make the jumps necessary to reach it, especially not at night, but there’s a half moon, which is plenty of light for Witchers, and Lambert doesn’t even spill the mead. They settle into the little alcove, shoulders pressed together, and pass the flagon back and forth for a while, watching the moonshadows move across the pastures behind the keep. Finally Lambert says, “So. Fucking Skellige, hm?”

“Fucking Skellige,” Aiden agrees. “Fucking cold-ass rocks, and they still think sheep guts are _supper_.”

Lambert snorts. “Learn anything useful, or did you just spend two years fucking around and fighting ice trolls?”

Aiden takes another swig of mead and leans back against the cool rock of the wall. “Made a lot of contacts, talked to a lot of people,” he says. “Killed a lot of sirens. Long and short of it is, if the Wolf takes Cintra, he’ll get Skellige too. And then we can send a whole bunch of those fucking insane Cranes off to sail around killing sea monsters. But they’re in too tight with that bitch of a Lioness to turn to the Wolf _before_ he gets around to taking Cintra.”

“Huh,” Lambert says. “Makes sense. What’s his name, the jarl who married the Lioness?”

“Eist Tuirseach. His nephew is the jarl now, Crach an Craite he’s called. Not a bad sort, really; got enough sense to know that if the Wolf’s got the whole damn seacoast, Skellige’ll do better to be _part_ of it than try their luck trading down south with Nilfgaard. He’ll swear to the Wolf if it comes to it, and his jarls will back him.”

“Makes sense,” Lambert says, nodding, and steals the mead for another brief swig. “Well, fuck ‘em, if they don’t bother us we won’t bother them, and Skelliger jarls don’t tend to be the sort of nasty fucks that piss Geralt off, so with luck we won’t have to invade. Fuck it, politics are _boring_. C’mon, asshole, you must’ve seen something more exciting than ice trolls out there.”

Aiden grins and steals the mead back. “Oh, you bet your ass I did.” He’ll tell his brothers about this sooner or later, but he wanted to tell Lambert _first_. “Lam, I saw a _sea serpent_.”

“No _shit_ ,” Lambert says, turning to stare at him. “I thought those were a fucking _myth_!”

“So did I,” Aiden says, and waves his free hand, trying to sketch the glorious moment in the air. “I was out in this dinky fucking little boat - town had a siren problem, fucking sirens, hate ‘em -”

“Annoying fuckers,” Lambert agrees.

“Yeah,” Aiden says. “So anyway, I’m out in the middle of fucking nowhere in this dinky little boat, and there’s this - _sound_ , I can’t even describe it, comes up through the bottom of the boat, through the water, like - like whalesong, you ever heard whalesong?”

“Yeah,” Lambert says. “Creepy as hell, but pretty, sorta.”

“Yeah. So, like whalesong, but _louder_. And it keeps getting louder and louder, and then this - this _thing_ comes up out of the water maybe a furlong away from me. Like a snake, but it coulda wrapped itself around Kaer Morhen, and it had fins, and it was this - this incredible blue-green color, never seen anything like it before. And it comes up out of the water, all the way out, like whales do, breaching or whatever the fuck it’s called, but _straight_ up, and its tail comes out of the water before its head comes back around. And I swear to fuck, Lam, it _looked_ at me.”

“No _shit_ ,” Lambert breathes.

Aiden nods and closes his eyes, remembering that astonishing moment: sitting there in the awful little boat, looking up and up and _up_ at the impossible, beautiful, terrible thing above him. “Its eyes were the deepest blue in the world,” he says at last. “The blue you see when you look down into the ocean, where it’s deep enough to go down _forever_ , and it’s almost black but not quite. It looked at me,” Aiden repeats quietly. “It _saw_ me. Saw right through me, maybe. And then - swear to fuck, I’m not making this up - the water _opened_ for it, it didn’t make a single splash, and it went right back down, straight as an arrow, and by the time I made it over to where it’d gone in, it was _long_ gone.”

There’s a short silence, and then Lambert says, “Holy fucking shit, Aiden.”

“Yeah,” Aiden agrees.

“You should tell Buttercup about that,” Lambert says. “He’ll put it in a song.”

Aiden blinks at his friend. Finally he says, “What the fuck happened here while I was gone, Lam? Wolf’s got a mate, and he and Eskel have finally figured out whatever the fuck’s going on with them, and you’ve got your - your pretty swan-maid, and - what the _fuck_ happened?”

Lambert takes the pitcher of mead and tips his head back for a long swallow before he hands it back. “Buttercup happened,” he says at last, thoughtfully.

“He sure as hell wasn’t the Wolf’s mate when I left,” Aiden prods.

“Yeah, no, that was...what, six months after you left? Seven? Something like that. After that fucking nasty little war in Kovir, you heard about that?”

“Yeah - Skelligers all thought the Koviri king was a fucking _idiot_ for provoking the Wolf.”

“ _Such_ a fucking idiot,” Lambert agrees. “I have met smarter _rocks_.”

“Right, so, idiot Koviri king, and then what, songbird just...fell into bed with the Wolf?”

“Basically,” Lambert shrugs. “And then there was the whole mess with the Redanian treaty, and the fucking husband-hunters.” He grins. “And Milena.”

“Milena,” Aiden echoes, and falls silent. He doesn’t quite know what to say. _How the fuck did you end up with a noble for a lover_ is the question on the tip of his tongue, but - Lambert’s a prickly asshole. Aiden doesn’t want to piss him off his first night back.

“You’ll like her,” Lambert says, leaning back and smiling - _smiling_ \- up at the moon. He smells like roses and honey and _happiness_. It’s fucking _unnatural_. “She’s...she’s just fucking _wonderful_.”

“What the hell,” Aiden says helplessly.

Lambert laughs, and it’s a surprisingly harsh sound. “Yeah,” he says, and his scent changes all at once, from happiness to something bitter and horrid. “Yeah. I dunno what she sees in me either.”

Aiden flails, nearly dropping the mead. “Fuck, no, _fuck_ , not what I meant! I just - she’s all _dainty_ , and I would’ve thought she’d have run screaming from a keep full of Witchers. Most people do.”

Lambert chuckles. “Yeah. Most people do. Not Milena. She’s fucking _steel_ under the silk. Everybody calls her my swan-maid, but you’ve met swans. Elegant and beautiful and fucking _dangerous_.”

“Yeah,” Aiden agrees warily. “That’s your girl, then? Dangerous?”

“When she’s gotta be,” Lambert says. He’s smelling a little happier again, and Aiden suppresses a sigh of relief. “Killed a princess a few months ago. Well. Ex-princess, I guess.”

“Stabby when kidnapped,” Aiden says, recalling Cedric’s words.

“Yeah,” Lambert agrees. “Fuck, that was a bad night.” He waves a hand. “Her and Buttercup and Eskel just fucking _gone_ \- yeah, that was fucking _awful_. Almost went feral and killed half a dozen priestesses.”

“...Priestesses?” Aiden says, baffled. That wouldn’t have been _his_ first choice of target, were he to have a kidnapped lover to go into a feral rage over.

“Fucking bitch Marta dressed up as a priestess,” Lambert elaborates, which actually explains very little. Aiden decides to corner Cedric and Axel and get the full story out of them as soon as possible.

“I’ll give her a chance,” he says, knocking his shoulder gently against Lambert’s. “If she likes _you_ , she can’t be that bad. Weird as fucking hell, but not _bad_.”

Lambert laughs, a real laugh this time. “Yeah, alright, that’s fair.” He knocks his own shoulder against Aiden’s. “You’ll see. Now, gimme that mead.”

“Fuck you, it’s my mead now,” Aiden says, and Lambert tries to grab it from him, so Aiden vaults out of their little alcove and goes haring off down the battlements. Lambert howls with mock outrage and follows him, and Aiden is fast but - and he hates to admit this - when it comes to a straight footrace, Lambert is just that hair faster, and also Aiden can’t go up walls as easily with a half-full flagon of mead in one hand. Lambert corners him near the gates, pinning him to the wall and plucking the flagon from his hand, and Aiden hisses as his friend takes a long drink.

And then, to Aiden’s surprise, Lambert hands it back, and there’s even a decent amount left. Aiden stares at Lambert in baffled shock.

Lambert looks down at his feet and scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Just drink it, asshole,” he mutters.

“...Thanks,” Aiden says, and drains the rest of the mead. It’s very good.

“Oh, shut up,” Lambert says, and leans against the wall next to him. There’s a long, companionable silence. Above them on the walltop, the night guards whistle the all-clear back and forth. Finally Lambert says, “Missed you. Good to have you home.”

“Good to _be_ home,” Aiden agrees. He’s not sure when Kaer Morhen became _home_ , but it is. All his brothers are here; his dearest friend is here; the servants know his name and _smile_ at him when they see him; the food is magnificent. It feels disloyal to think that it’s better than Stygga ever was, but Stygga was cold and dark and _angry_ all the time, Cats hissing and bristling at each other in the corners, all of them brothers but the sort of brothers who fight all the time. Even the ones Aiden _liked_ , Cedric and Axel and fierce little Dragonfly, were all sharp edges and bristles. It’s probably why he was able to deal with Lambert so well: the man’s as prickly as any Cat. But in Kaer Morhen - in Kaer Morhen they’re not all pulling in different directions, like a bunch of unhappy cats on leashes. They’re all hunting together, like a pride of lions, and maybe it’s not natural for lions to follow a wolf, but - eh, the metaphor’s gotten away from him, but the heart of it still holds true. “Even with mead-thieves chasing me around.”

Lambert chuckles. “Fuck you,” he says cheerfully.

Aiden laughs, and then surprises both of them with a jaw-crackingly huge yawn. Lambert snorts and throws an arm around Aiden’s shoulders. “C’mon, bedtime for sleepy kitties,” he teases. Aiden elbows him as hard as he can, and Lambert yelps but doesn’t let go. “Asshole,” he says fondly, and Aiden sighs and leans against him and lets himself be led back into the keep and up to his rooms. Some blessed chambermaid has stoked up the fire, and Lambert pours him into bed and laughs at him as he tries to get his boots off, before yanking them off and tossing a heavy blanket over him.

“Sparring tomorrow,” Aiden slurs, feeling rather like he’s sinking into the bed, about to be swallowed by goosedown and furs. “Kick your ass.”

“Like to see you try,” Lambert replies, and pats Aiden’s leg. “Sleep, asshole.”

“Mph,” says Aiden, and is asleep before the door closes behind Lambert.


	2. Chapter 2

Sparring the next morning is _glorious_. Aiden has missed getting to test himself against other Witchers, agile Cats and sturdy Bears and cunning Manticores, skillful Griffins and inventive Cranes and vicious Vipers, and, of course, fierce Wolves. There’s nothing quite like it, and Aiden flings himself into the morning training with glee. Cats first, of course, brothers take precedence: Treyse to see if Aiden’s lost his edge (which of course he hasn’t), Cedric and Axel in a sort of whirling three-way match where no one can ever be sure who’s on their side, which is the fun of it, half-crazy and gleefully unpredictable Kiyan, fierce little Dragonfly with her absurd profusion of knives. And then Aiden takes on anyone who cares to line up against him, learning - yet again - that Bears are incredibly frustrating to fight and Manticores still have that nasty habit of putting mild poisons on even their _training_ weapons and Cranes cannot for the life of them stop creating new kinds of knives, even though the old kinds work just _fine_.

It’s well after midmorning, and Aiden has accumulated a bit of a sweat and several small nicks and bruises and a grin that won’t go away, when he finally gets around to the Wolves. Eskel is always fun to fight, strong and powerfully magical as he is; when he’s feeling like an asshole, he’ll just put up a Quen and let people hammer on it until they get tired, but today he’s apparently in a good mood, and he and Aiden get distracted from _fighting_ by playing Aard-the-Cat and seeing how many flips Aiden can do before he lands. The White Wolf actually laughs at them, which is a fucking rare sight. And when the other Cats come crowding over to join the game, Lambert beckons Aiden over, and Aiden gets his promised sparring match.

Aiden is slightly more agile, Lambert slightly stronger, and both of them are absolutely ruthless in a fight. Their match attracts a fair bit of attention, Witchers gathering around in a wide ring, clapping and whooping and calling advice which Aiden ignores. Fighting Lambert demands all his attention, always has. On a good day, he wins their matches, but it’s always so damn close that the slightest inattention is enough to tip the scales.

Unlike, just to pick an example purely at random, the very few times Aiden has been stupid enough to agree to fight the White Wolf. It’s genuinely unfair for anyone to be that strong _and_ that fast _and_ that sturdy; the White Wolf even beats up on the fucking _Bears_. Asshole. But that’s why he’s the Warlord and Aiden, thank every god, is _not_.

Today, Aiden is unfortunately not in top form, on account of two years of travel without any other Witchers to practice with, and the match ends with Lambert managing to trip him and pin him to the ground, knife at Aiden’s throat. Aiden groans and taps the ground, conceding. “Asshole Wolf,” he grumbles as Lambert rolls to his feet and offers him a hand up.

“Fucking Cat,” Lambert returns easily, hauling Aiden up and clapping him on the shoulder. “Race you to the baths, you stink.”

“Oh fuck you,” Aiden retorts, and trips him before taking off towards the keep. Lambert yelps indignantly, but the extra few seconds lead is enough for Aiden to make it through the doors before he’s caught, and he corners better than Lambert does, and is faster on stairs. He skids through the door to the bathing cavern _well_ before Lambert, and is lounging in a hot spring, trying to look like he isn’t panting from the run, by the time Lambert arrives. Lambert makes a rude gesture at him and shucks his clothes, sliding into the water with a _very_ deliberate splash. Aiden considers splashing back, but he doesn’t actually feel like having another sparring match in the water.

“I have fucking _missed_ these baths,” Aiden sighs. “Fucking Skelligers think running out into the snow _naked_ is a fun way to get clean.”

“Well that’s fucking stupid,” Lambert says. “But they also think sheep guts are food, so…”

“So they’re all fucking insane,” Aiden says. “I gotta report to the council after dinner; come find you after?”

“Sure. Be down in the salle with Milena.”

“In the salle?” Aiden asks, genuinely startled.

“Dagger training,” Lambert says, like this is a completely normal thing to do with one’s lover. “She’s pretty good.”

“...Right,” Aiden says, baffled. “Alright. The salle.”

The rest of the Witchers come pouring in at that point, and it gets a bit too noisy for private conversations.

*

Aiden’s report to the council is simple enough; he’s kept good notes during his travels, and can give fairly comprehensive accounts of people and places, concentrations of monsters, problems he saw and rumors he heard, the general reception of Witchers - steadily improving, especially in the Warlord’s lands, where to his surprise he was greeted several times with a song, either the _Ode to Witchers_ or one that appears to have been written specifically about Cats, which startled him badly the first time he heard it.

The White Wolf and his council - including the songbird, and when did _that_ happen? - ask pretty sensible questions, and Aiden leaves feeling like he’s actually done something useful with these last two years of wandering about in the cold mountains of Skellige, so that’s nice. And he won’t get sent out _again_ for at least another year, not unless he asks; the White Wolf is scrupulously fair about such things. So he’s got at least a year of occasional monster hunts and training with his brethren and generally enjoying himself, unless they end up going to war again, which is...not _fun_ , exactly, but it’s certainly an interesting use of his talents, so he doesn’t mind too much. He’s no too-honorable Wolf, after all; his skills kill men as easily as monsters, and he doesn’t feel bad about it afterwards, either.

He heads down to the salle after he makes his report, wondering what dagger training with a noblewoman could possibly look like. A lot of squeaking and flinching, perhaps, and a flimsy little edgeless dagger that couldn’t hurt a fly? Though Cedric did say ‘stabby when kidnapped’ - still, even rabbits will bite when cornered. And for all Lambert claimed she was dangerous when she had to be, Milena is a tiny delicate thing, all big eyes and dainty gestures.

There _were_ those knife-calluses on her hands, though…

A good Witcher investigates thoroughly before drawing conclusions, and Aiden is a _very_ good Witcher. So he slinks into the salle as quietly as he can, which is pretty damn quietly, and leans against the wall to observe.

Lambert and his pretty swan-maid aren’t precisely sparring, because if Lambert used his whole strength and speed, the match would be over before it began. But he’s limited himself to a human’s abilities, and Milena is -

Well, fuck. She’s holding her own, is what she’s doing. She’s _fast_ for a human, and though the dagger in her hand is small, it’s sharp, edge gleaming in the lantern-light. She’s graceful, light on her feet and sure in her movements, like she’s dancing across the floor.

Swan-maid, huh? More like a hunting cat, with the near-silent padding of her slippered feet, the swish of her skirt as she turns like the twitching of a great cat’s tail.

Lambert steps back and raises a hand, and Milena puts up her dagger. “Not bad,” Lambert says. “Mind that guard on your left side.” Which...is the same advice Aiden would’ve given, had he been asked. Huh. “Hey, Aiden,” Lambert adds, and Milena turns and gives him a shockingly brilliant smile.

“Good afternoon,” she says cheerfully.

“Hey,” Aiden says, a little awkwardly. “This reprobate teaching you all his bad habits?”

Lambert bristles. Milena giggles. “Most of them,” she says. “I can’t swear anywhere near as well yet, though.”

“ _Nobody_ swears like Lambert does,” Aiden says, and Lambert makes a very rude gesture at him where Milena can’t see. “He is the very paragon of cursing.”

Milena giggles harder.

“You just here to give me shit, or what?” Lambert grumbles.

“I am _always_ here to give you shit,” Aiden says, beaming. “But if you want, we could try a re-match. Let your pretty swan-maid watch me kick your ass.”

“You can try,” Lambert grins. “That alright, Milena?”

“I would be delighted to watch you spar,” Milena says, and tucks her dagger away...somewhere. Aiden doesn’t see a sheath on her belt anywhere; it just sort of vanishes into her skirts. “Where would be best for me to stay out of your way?”

“Up on the bench,” Lambert says, and Milena nods and hops up onto one of the benches, pressing herself against the wall. Aiden notes where she is, and then ignores her: he can afford no distraction, not against Lambert. Lambert smirks at Aiden. “C’mon, then, kitty.”

“I’ll give you _kitty_ ,” Aiden snarls, and leaps.

The nice thing about fighting inside, actually, is that there are walls to bounce off of; he’s a _Cat_ , they _like_ going up walls. It gives him just that _little_ bit of an edge that he was lacking this morning. They romp all up and down the salle, collecting little nicks and cuts that heal almost before they can bleed, insulting each other cheerfully, swearing in eight languages between them. It’s _wonderful_.

It ends in a draw, too, the edge of Lambert’s dagger against Aiden’s throat, the tip of Aiden’s against Lambert’s thigh where the big vein pulses. They both freeze for the space of one slow heartbeat, grinning, and then Aiden flips his knife up and away, and Lambert sheathes his, and they pound each other on the shoulders and back, grinning like the predators they are.

Aiden is genuinely startled when Milena starts clapping. He’d just about forgotten she was _there_.

“That was magnificent!” she says. “I so rarely get to see you sparring, except from a distance; it’s even more impressive from so near.”

Lambert grins and practically _oozes_ pride and happiness. It’s astonishing. Aiden turns and bows to their audience of one, as flamboyantly as he can, and she giggles.

“I am, of course, always impressive,” Aiden informs her.

“So I am given to understand,” she replies, grinning. “I didn’t recognize some of those moves; are they special Cat tricks?”

“Nah, they’re Skelliger,” Aiden says, impressed all over again that she’s apparently learned enough of knife-fighting to be able to parse the individual strikes and parries.

“Would you be willing to teach any of them to me?”

Aiden blinks at her. It’s one thing, surely, to learn to fight from her _lover_ , whom she presumably trusts not to hurt her, and entirely another to ask a Witcher she’s only met _yesterday_ for lessons. He glances over at Lambert, who shrugs.

“I wanna learn them too,” he says. “Can’t ever know too many knife tricks.”

“...Sure?” Aiden says, raising an eyebrow at Lambert to ask if he’s _really_ alright with this. Lambert shrugs again.

“Lovely,” Milena says, and hops down off the bench. “Have you time this afternoon, or shall we meet again some other day?”

“I...have time,” Aiden says, and decides that he’s just going to go with this until and unless Lambert objects. “Right, so, this one only works if you’re off-balance.” He demonstrates the necessary stance, and Lambert and Milena both mirror him.

It’s a pleasant way to spend an hour, actually. Lambert, of course, picks up the new moves easily; he’s a Witcher, after all. Milena isn’t as quick or as agile, and it takes her several repetitions to grasp each new concept, but she’s enthusiastic and hard-working and eager, so it...well, it works.

It doesn’t get any less weird to be teaching _Lambert’s pretty swan-maid_ Skelliger knife-tricks, though.

*

Supper is cheerful and rowdy as always, and the other Cats give Aiden shit about Lambert beating him, which is normal, and make plans to bribe Eskel into further games of Aard-the-Cat, which is less normal but much funnier. After dinner, the bard gets up and sings, and Aiden has to admit that he’s quite good, much more confident than he was when Aiden left, and the songs are -

It’s so weird, hearing songs that _praise_ Witchers. Aiden’s heard plenty of songs _deriding_ Witchers over the years, lots of stories about Witchers as the monsters in the dark, child-stealers, wife-ravagers, only slightly less terrible than the things they slay. But these -

The bard sings about Witchers as _heroes_. Sings about them saving lives, rescuing children, walking out of the darkness into the dawn with their monstrous prey lying slain behind them. He even picks out one brand-new Manticore, fresh off his first season out on the Path, and sings a little ditty about the lad successfully killing a kikimora in time to save the life of the young woman who had been its intended victim. The Manticore covers his face with his hands, and would probably be blushing if Witchers _could_ , but his brothers all clap him on the back and beam and bellow the chorus.

“He’s trying to write one for everyone,” Cedric says as the song ends and the Witchers stomp their feet and applaud. “Probably corner you and ask for stories sooner rather than later.”

“A song for every Witcher?” Aiden asks incredulously. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nah, he says it’ll take him a while but he needs something to keep him busy.” Cedric shrugs. “He’s _always_ composing. Probably won’t take him more than a decade or so.” Which is very little time indeed to a Witcher, after all.

Aiden shakes his head in bafflement. “How the _fuck_ did this much change in two years?”

Cedric shrugs. Axel says, tone very thoughtful, “Humans live faster’n Witchers do. We don’t change easy - we do things the way we always have. Having the songbird around, he pushes us to do new things, try new ideas. Same as the Wolf did, only a lot faster.”

Slowly, Cedric nods. “Wolf said, what if we protected people from _all_ the monsters, and we followed him, and we changed,” he says, tapping his fingers on the table. “Now the songbird says we’ve gone and made ourselves heroes.” He snorts a little. “And his songs make people believe it. So I guess we’d better live up to them.”

“Heroes,” Aiden says, meaning to sound scornful and, to his own dismay, only managing baffled. Witchers aren’t heroes. Well. _Maybe_ Wolves or Griffins, now and again. The White Wolf’s got the temperament for it. But Manticores, Bears, _Cats_ \- no.

Axel grins, a flash of white teeth. “Insane, isn’t it?” he asks. “But everyone knows Cats are all mad anyhow. May as well enjoy it, hey?”

All around them, Witchers sing and laugh, and a few of them are even dancing to the bard’s cheerful tunes. The White Wolf is smiling, just a little, and Eskel beside him is leaning back in his chair looking as contented as Aiden’s ever seen him, and Lambert is halfway down the table with Milena in his lap again, doubtless smelling like roses and contentment. The whole damn world’s gone mad -

May as well enjoy it.

“Bard!” Aiden shouts as the current song comes to an end. “Give us _The Skelliger_ , will you?”

The songbird grins, bright and merry. “I’d have thought you’d have had enough Skelligers recently,” he says, voice light and lilting with amusement. “But if that’s what you want, then who am I to disagree?” He gives Aiden a flourishing bow and strikes up the song, and Aiden claps along with the rest of the hall, and finds himself laughing.

Huh.

Maybe there’s some merit to this bard thing after all.

*

Lambert gets called away for a monster hunt the next day, which is moderately disappointing, but it’s his turn on the roster and anyhow it won’t be more than a few days, maybe a week depending on what sort of monsters the patrol turns up. It’s only _supposed_ to be a kikimora, but reports from terrified villagers are often lacking in accuracy.

Aiden decides that this is a perfect time to get to know his best friend’s pretty swan-maid a little better. He doesn’t _think_ she’s with Lambert for any nefarious reasons - nobody can fake the smell of love, as far as he knows, and she is _definitely_ in love with Lambert - but one can never be too careful, and he wants to know how the _fuck_ a sheltered Redanian noblewoman ended up partnered with the prickliest asshole in Kaer Morhen.

Some careful questioning of his brothers during dinner turns up the information that Milena usually spends her early afternoons closeted with Yennefer, doing fuck-knows-what. Aiden spends a few hours pestering the armorer - a dwarf, new to the keep since Aiden left, who certainly seems to know his business well enough - and the weaponsmith, and then heads up to the sorceress’s office to see if he can catch Milena before she leaves.

He can hear the two women laughing before he even opens the door, and - Cat that he is - pauses and listens. “So then he spent four hours in the gardens gathering flowers,” he hears Milena say, “and managed a very nice bouquet - except that it said that he thought she was vain, arrogant, and ugly, and that he hated her.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Yennefer chortles.

Aiden _had_ started to bristle at the idea Milena was mocking _Lambert_ , but this is clearly a story about someone else, some poor bastard who failed at flirting, presumably back in Redania.

“Thank _goodness_ , he showed it to Hanna before he gave it to Natalia,” Milena says, giggling. “She gave him a book of flower language and told him under _no_ circumstances to ever use lobelias again.”

“Didn’t Lambert give you lobelias the other day?” Yennefer asks.

“Yes,” Milena says. “They matched my dress. And no, you mayn’t tell him what they mean. He’d be _devastated_. As far as I’m concerned, they were a lovely shade of blue and looked very fine in my hair, and that’s an end to it.”

“Oh, very well,” Yennefer sighs.

Aiden is honestly rather taken aback. It’s obvious that Lambert would protect Milena: any Witcher would put himself between his lover and any threat without hesitation or second thought. But this is Milena protecting _Lambert_ , not from any physical danger, but from - well, from his own insecurities. Aiden knows his friend well enough to guess that if Lambert found out he’d inadvertently insulted Milena, he’d be hurt far worse than any monster’s claws could ever injure him.

To steal a line from the White Wolf: Hm.

Aiden’s going to have to find a book on Redanian flower language.

He knocks on the door and waits for an answer, since no sensible man is rude to a sorceress without a damn good reason. “Come!” Yennefer calls, and he opens the door and lounges against the frame, not actually entering. Catch _him_ in a mage’s den - no sirree!

“Lady Yennefer,” he says, nodding politely. “Milena. Came to see if you wanted to learn a few more Skelliger tricks, give Lambert a bit of a surprise when he gets back.”

Milena smiles at him. “That sounds delightful,” she says happily. “Lady Yen, do you mind?”

“Not at all, dear,” Yennefer says. “Go have fun.”

Milena gives Yennefer a curtsey and a grin, and follows Aiden out. He glances over at her, assessing her without letting her see him do so. “D’you need to stop by your rooms for your knives?”

“No,” she says, and does something with her far hand that he can’t see behind the sweep of her skirts, and is holding a pretty little jewel-hilted dagger.

“Where the _fuck_ did you have that hidden?” Aiden blurts.

Milena giggles and makes it vanish again. “Lambert got creative with his courting gifts,” she says, which isn’t an answer really. Aiden can respect that, though. Cats don’t give up _their_ secrets easily.

“What other clevernesses has he come up with?” he asks instead, and Milena reaches up and taps the elegant silver pins holding her hair up.

“Well, these are lockpicks,” she says. Aiden blinks at her.

“You’ve got _lots_ of hidden depths, don’t you,” he says slowly.

Milena shrugs. “I don’t know about that. _I_ think I’m fairly straightforward.”

Aiden considers that until they reach the salle, and then produces a dagger of his own and gestures for her to mirror him. “Footwork to warm up,” he says - no point letting her strain something and get hurt - and Milena nods and takes her place facing him without complaint.

She’s graceful and light on her feet, and mirrors him easily so long as he keeps to a human pace. That’s fine. It’s not as though she needs to learn to fight _Witchers_ , after all; it’s only humans who might ever threaten her.

“So,” he says, once they’ve gotten pretty well into a rhythm. “You and Lambert.”

Milena grins. “I wondered when you were going to ask.” Aiden gives her a startled look. “You’re the closest thing he has to a brother, I think, besides the other Wolves, and _they_ all watched us courting. You didn’t, so of course you have questions.”

“Yeah, I do,” Aiden says, a little more harshly than he meant to. “Let’s start with: why Lambert?”

Milena doesn’t flinch. “Lots of reasons. He’s sweet, he’s clever, he’s awfully handsome. But mostly it’s because he’s a prickly asshole.”

Aiden actually stops moving, standing stock-still and gaping at her. “ _What_?”

Milena stops, too, two arms’ length away, dagger easy in her hand. “As far as I can tell, Witchers don’t generally spend time in royal courts,” she says, which seems like a total non sequitur, but Aiden is so confused that he just nods. “So you don’t really have any experience with the sheer _nastiness_ that goes on under the facade of courtesy and genteel posturing. I was at court for a year before Jaskier came to visit; in that time my father received four marriage proposals for me. Would you care to hazard a guess at why?”

Aiden frowns. “...Because you’re a very pretty girl, and I think your father’s a duke?”

Milena tilts her head in gracious acceptance of the compliment. “Half right. My appearance had very little to do with it. Two of them were matters of trade, men who wanted a connection to the de Roggeven holdings and my father’s favor. The third wanted to rub my father’s face in the fact that he doesn’t have a male heir. And the fourth - well, he _did_ want a pretty young wife, but since he was sixty-three and had beaten three wives to death already, I don’t think that was a compliment.” Aiden feels a little ill at her matter-of-fact words. “My father rejected them all because none of them offered anything valuable enough: the trade routes weren’t particularly lucrative, and the old man only offered one of his _minor_ holdings. If he’d come back with a better offer, my father might have taken it. I’m only a third daughter. Expendable.” She smiles, and it’s not a cheerful expression. “Three of them courted me - the old man didn’t bother, of course. I got a great many flowers, and jewels, and little trinkets, and pretty promises of love, and every single one of them was a lie.”

Aiden swallows hard. He’s used to humans lying to him, but always about things like money and monsters - he’s never had someone claim to _love_ him falsely.

“Court life is _built_ on lies,” Milena continues, quiet and calm. “Lies about who you love. False promises of fidelity, of loyalty, of alliance. Everyone lies, to everyone, all the time. It’s just the way it is. I was fully expecting to spend my life lying and being lied to, regardless of who I ended up being married off to - assuming I survived both the marriage bed and childbirth, and my husband’s temper. And then I came to Kaer Morhen, and met Lambert.” Her smile grows soft and sweet. “Lambert is an ass, and will always be an ass, and can’t lie to save his life.”

This is all quite true. Aiden nods.

“And _because_ of that, I know every single word of love he gives me is the utter truth. Every present he brings me is something he genuinely thinks I will enjoy or find useful. He doesn’t flatter, he doesn’t prevaricate, he doesn’t have any ulterior motives. He’s _honest_ down to the bones of him. I don’t think anyone in Kaer Morhen except Jaskier understands how priceless that is.” She shrugs a little. “Also he makes me laugh, and I feel safe with him, and he’s _very_ good in bed. But the first thing, the very first thing that made me think I could love him, was the fact that he’s an ass, and so I can trust him.” She cocks her head curiously at him. “Does that answer your question?”

Aiden shakes himself a little to get his thoughts to stop running about aimlessly. It only sort of works. “Yeah, I guess it does.” He stares at her for a while. “You do know Lambert’s eighty-four?”

“Yes, he mentioned it. I also know Witcher ages and human ages work differently.” She raises an eyebrow. “Are you trying to talk me out of loving him?”

“No!” Aiden blurts. “No, no, I just - thought you should know.” Since she’d mentioned her oldest suitor was sixty-three, in tones of mild disgust - but as she says, Witcher aging is different. “I - three wives? Really?”

Milena sighs. “Yes, really. He’s one of the reasons I really rather wish the Wolf would get around to conquering the rest of Redania. He’s the king’s uncle, so even though everyone _knows_ he’s killed at least three women - I would guess it’s quite a few more, those are just the _noblewomen_ , after all - as long as he has the king’s favor, no one can do anything about it.”

“Huh,” Aiden says, and thinks a little more. “I didn’t need to know that about Lambert being good in bed.”

“You asked,” Milena points out, with a sweet innocent smile like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Aiden puts his head back and guffaws. “Alright, kitten, I’ll not try your claws again,” he says, and settles back into a proper duelling stance and beginning the footwork drill again.

“Did I pass muster, then?” Milena asks, matching him step for step.

“Yeah,” Aiden allows, smiling. He didn’t ever think Lambert would find a woman who _liked_ the fact that he’s prickly as a hedgehog and swears like a sailor, but - well, now that he _has_ , Aiden’s pretty damn happy for his friend. “I think you did.”

Yeah, he decides. Yeah, she’ll do. She’ll do very well indeed.

*

“ _Just_ so, kitten,” Aiden says, as Milena masters a particularly tricky flip of her knife. The salle door opens, letting in a very familiar scent and heartbeat, and he grins. “Look who the kikimora dragged in!”

Milena _lights up_ , her scent going from mild happiness to vivid joy, and whirls, tucking her knife away - Aiden _still_ hasn’t managed to figure out where she’s hiding it. “Lambert!” she cries, and darts across the salle, flinging herself into her lover’s arms. Lambert catches her easily, looking a little startled at the intensity of her enthusiasm, and Aiden saunters over, chuckling, as Milena hauls Lambert’s head down into a very thorough kiss.

“Do I want to know what this asshole’s been teaching you?” Lambert asks after a few minutes. Milena giggles.

“Skelliger knife tricks,” she says. “And how to walk quietly.” A hunting cat ought to move silently as a shadow, after all, and she’s already got the soft shoes for it; Aiden’s been enjoying teaching her to place her feet just so, to move so smoothly that even her skirts don’t rustle.

“You trying to make a fucking Cat out of her?” Lambert asks, freeing a hand from their embrace to clap Aiden on the shoulder. Aiden returns the gesture, grinning.

“Well, she’s far too sensible to be a Wolf,” he teases. Milena sticks her tongue out at him and snuggles a little closer to Lambert, radiating happiness and love so strongly Aiden can _taste_ it. “And she’s _definitely_ not a swan. Swans are assholes.”

Lambert considers that, and shrugs. “You know what, that’s fair.”

“Also,” Aiden adds, “you smell like a swamp. Did you fall in?” It’s faint - Lambert has clearly had a bath at some point since fighting whatever it was they actually found - but it’s strong enough to make for decent teasing fodder, which is enough for Aiden.

“Fuck you,” Lambert says cheerfully. “Like to see _you_ fight a kikimora queen without getting soaked.”

“Just a queen?” Aiden asks.

“Nah, there were a handful of soldiers. Not too many; queen can’t have been in the area more than a week or so.” Lambert shrugs. “Junod took the queen, and Stefan got to try out that fucking insane crossbow he’s been bragging on for the last few months, with the explosive bolts, and after that it was just cleanup.”

“And you’re not hurt?” Milena checks anxiously.

“Not a scratch,” Lambert assures her. Aiden sniffs surreptitiously, but there’s no blood-scent; he’s telling the truth, or at least he wasn’t hurt badly enough that it couldn’t heal before he made it back. “Only one who got hurt was Stefan, and _he_ fell out of a tree like a fucking idiot.”

Aiden snorts. “Hasn’t anyone ever told him Cranes can’t _actually_ fly?”

Lambert grins. “Been reminding him of that for the last two days.”

“You’re _dreadful_ ,” Milena says, and giggles.

“You sure you want to spend your time with this asshole?” Aiden asks, and he’s teasing, but also -

Also he smelled it, when Lambert first came in, that wash of fear and anxiety that turned to relief and joy when Milena ran to him. Aiden isn’t _completely_ sure what that’s about, but he thinks he can guess: Lambert was scared that Aiden and Milena might have gotten along a little too well. Aiden _does_ like Milena, quite a lot, but not as a lover. As a sister, almost; she reminds him, in her courage and grace and hidden strength, of a young Cat, though no Cat ever spoke so fair or dressed so well. And she’s grown to like _him_ , judging by her scent and the fact that she’s happily spent the last four afternoons in his company, but it’s friendship and nothing more - no lust in it at all. _Certainly_ not the honey-sweet love that’s now filling the air around them now. But Lambert needs a little reassurance, the prickly bastard.

“Always,” Milena says, and Lambert ducks his head to press his nose into her hair and makes a little almost wounded noise.

And then Aiden is abruptly so proud of his friend - and so grateful to Milena - that it damn well _hurts_ , because Lambert whispers, “You wouldn’t rather - wouldn’t prefer Aiden?”

Ye gods, the man has learned to _say_ things instead of just bottling them up until he has to hit something. Hell with wondering whether Milena’s secretly part-succubus: is she secretly part- _god_?

“Aiden is delightful company,” Milena says, “and not _nearly_ enough of an asshole for me. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, my love.”

Lambert makes another tiny noise and kisses her, and the smell of relief is _very_ strong. Prickly godsdamned asshole. Aiden is so fucking fond of him. And if he makes a big deal out of this, Lambert will probably try to punch him. So Aiden puffs his chest out and grins. “Hear that? I’m delightful company! Why don’t _you_ give me compliments like that, hm?”

Lambert grins back, and if it’s a little shaky, Aiden and Milena both ignore that. “I’ll give you compliments when you deserve them, asshole,” Lambert snarks, and Aiden laughs.

“I’ll make you eat those words tomorrow,” he promises. “But seriously, you need a bath - and so do I; kitten here gave me a workout.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Lambert sighs. “Milena? D’you want to join us?”

“Yes,” Milena says, and Lambert scoops her up in his arms; she giggles and snuggles happily closer. Aiden gets the door.

They end up in one of the smaller human-safe pools, Milena tucked up against Lambert with her head on his shoulder, Aiden sprawled out across from them, amusing himself by flicking water at Lambert - _not_ at Milena, since she doesn’t deserve that sort of shit and also Lambert would probably not find it amusing. Lambert makes little growling noises and kicks at Aiden’s legs occasionally, and otherwise looks so utterly contented that it’s hard to believe he’s got a reputation as the prickliest asshole in Kaer Morhen.

Milena actually falls _asleep_ after a little while. She hasn’t been sleeping well with Lambert gone, Aiden knows. Aiden is struck all over again by the sheer _trust_ of it, a dainty little noblewoman putting herself quite literally into a Witcher’s broad and bloody hands, utterly content to be there. He stops flicking water, and Lambert stops moving entirely, curling one arm more securely around her to make sure her head stays safely above water.

“Thanks,” Lambert says after a while, so quietly Aiden almost doesn’t hear it.

“...For?” As far as he knows, Aiden hasn’t done anything to be thanked _for_ recently.

“Looking out for her,” Lambert says. “Giving her a chance.”

Aiden looks from his best friend to his best friend’s lover, asleep on his best friend’s shoulder, utterly unafraid in the heart of the stronghold of the Warlord of the North. “She loves you,” he says at last. “I figured Cats who love you oughta stick together.” He grins. “Don’t suppose she’s got a cousin? Another pretty little noblewoman with steel in her spine who might want a slightly beat-up Cat instead of a Wolf?” He knows better than to ask about a _sister_ ; Milena told him the story of her kidnapping, and Aiden doesn’t think he could be polite enough to keep from slapping her eldest sister, while her middle sister apparently would react to Kaer Morhen about as well as...well, as a gently-bred young woman would be expected to react to a keep full of half-feral monster hunters.

“I’ll ask,” Lambert says, and looks down at Milena for a moment, and then back up to meet Aiden’s eyes. “Find you a girl with a Wolf’s heart,” he says slowly, “and then the Wolves who love _you_ can stick together, yeah?”

Aiden’s a _Witcher_ , Witchers don’t get choked up and teary-eyed. Not even Cats; not even when their dearest friends actually _admit_ they’re dear to each other, in a way Lambert _never_ could have before Milena happened. But he kind of wishes they did. Instead, he stretches out one leg and knocks his foot gently against Lambert’s. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Sounds good.”

And it does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lobelias mean arrogance or malevolence in Victorian flower language.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Home Again From Far-Off Places](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011130) by [AceOfTigers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers)
  * [distance makes the heart grow fonder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585773) by [Matrioschka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matrioschka/pseuds/Matrioschka)




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